The Short, Sad Life of Christian Choate

It's a good thing I can usually control myself because I'm not sure what I'd do if I ever came across sub-humans like Riley Choate and Christina Kubina, the father and stepmother of Christian Choate.

The details of this child's life are enough to make me cry, and I don't cry easily. The pair are accused of locking Christian in a five foot high dog cage the last year of his life, beating him and of denying him food and water. He wasn't in school because Kubina, was claiming to have home-schooled him and assigned essays like:

"Why do you want to play with your peter?"

"Why do you want to see your mother?"

"Why can't you let go of the past?"

"What does it mean to be part of a family?"

His answers in documents obtained by the Indiana Department of Children's Services spoke of his despair. He wondered why nobody liked him and of how he wanted to be liked by his family. He wondered when someone was going to check on him and give him food and something to drink, and he wrote of a desire to die.

Although he had a sister, Christina, their father threatened to harm her if she ever told anyone, so it would be years before she did.

One night in April 2009, Christian vomited after being let out of his cage, so his father beat him unconscious and put him back in. His died during the night, and his sister discovered his lifeless body the next morning. He was only thirteen. Their father put him in a shallow grave behind the house, covered it with a thin layer of concrete, put a slab of wood over it and moved the family to Kentucky where Christiana wasn't allowed to go to school or use the phone.

Two years later, Christian's biological mother awoke and called the police because she hadn't heard from her son in a while. This prompted an investigation and Christina told about what happened to her brother. Authorities were led to Riley who led them to the grave and admitted to burying the boy but not to killing him.

Riley Choate and Christina Kubina have been charged with murder, battery, neglect of a dependent, moving a body from a death scene and failure to notify authorities of a death.

This calls for the need for reform on behalf of all the Christian Choate's out there. The school districts should set up a task force to make surprise visits to the houses of kids who are being home schooled and others that have fallen off the radar.

Either way, it's a good thing I am not going to be working in the jail these two are going to because I would want to do things to them that would cause me to get sent there myself. The only consolation is that they will be going there and that felons don't tend to take too kindly to child abusers.

It breaks my heart to read this,this will stay with me for quite awhile. The poor kid must have felt so alone during his ordeal, it almost brought me to tears also,then I got angry! They say the death penalty is not a deterant, but if your dead, you can't do this to anybody again. I understand that we have to know all the facts and be careful when talking the dealth penalty, but when it is clear cut as this case is, I could do it myself with no remorse, and there are those who will argue that I am no better than the killers. I beg to differ, they took an innocent life,a childs life, and he suffered painfully before dying, the feeling of being unloved.... the people who did this should pay with their lives! Or put them in general population in prison, let them get a dose of what they did to that boy, over and over and over.....Christian may your poor soul finally be at peace,and the animals that did this to you be exterminated!

-- Posted by northman on Tue, Jun 28, 2011, at 3:55 PM

This a very tragic story of a beautiful child who deserved so much more from the adults in his life. My only hope is his story inspires all of us to take a good hard look at what we are paying attention to. All our children deserve better then this. Our systems failed him. The school, his community, the child protective service. The most obvious, his parents and step parents. I will be writing a blog on my website to hopefully give him his noteriety he so deserved. My heart also goes out to his sister who also lived in fear under such horrid condtions. May she use her beautiful voice to speak out and be heard. Let us not use this for more hatred but healing and reaching out to those who need it the most our magnificent children. http://heartsofhealing.org/hearts-of-hea...

-- Posted by jvaneyll on Tue, Jun 28, 2011, at 4:41 PM

This post is factually incorrect in several respects.

The mother did not "awake" and suddenly inquire about her son. She lost custody of him and his sister when he was young because of abuse and neglect (she was suspected of abusing him, and she left him with one boyfriend while she went off with another boyfriend). She never inquired after her son after that. Never. He lived six more years and she never saw him. She didn't come back into the picture until her daughter Christina called a half-sister (her mother's daughter by yet another man) and told her of Christian's death. The mother is the living picture of neglect.

The investigation did not start because of the mother and not because of the sister. It started because the half-sister told the mother, who finally called police.

His sister has requested immunity in return for testimony against her father and former stepmother. She needs immunity because she abused Christian also, to please her father. Other children have testified that she punched and choked him until he turned blue, gave him ice baths, and beat him around the head with a metal pipe. She might, in fact, be guilty of dealing the fatal blow to the head. So I wouldn't say she has a "beautiful voice." She didn't report his death for two years after he died. She didn't do the right thing for him while he was alive and she's not doing it now.

Christian's pediatrician noted that the boy was bruised, losing weight, said he was "locked up at night" and "felt angry all the time"--and did nothing. The state of Indiana doesn't follow up on "home schooled" children. Thus every single person who could have helped this boy either abused him or neglected him, including his own mother and sister.

This story breaks my heart. I wish I could have taken him into our home and taken care of him myself. As it is I just do some volunteer work. Let's all keep our eyes open. It's amazing what can go on when no one is really paying attention.

-- Posted by A Mother too on Thu, Jun 30, 2011, at 12:35 AM

That father(?) has the look of a cornered rat. Are we supposed to forgive Christian's biological mother and sister? His sister could have gone to the police and ended Christian's suffering a lot sooner. I for one will not forgive.

-- Posted by Greta on Thu, Aug 4, 2011, at 3:53 PM

How can this happen in the 21st century! The amount of people that let this little boy down is insane, if you slap your yound child(9yrs-13yrs) in the face in front of other people, what are you doing behind closed doors. I guess we know now what happens. This story breaks my heart! Also I wonder why Riley and Kimberly weren't charged for child abuse of the OTHER kids living in the home. I find in hard to believe that it was a happy home watching all this crazy abuse, you would have to be totally heartless to watch or hear this and not be totally horrified. I don't understand how Christian had several older siblings and also his natural mother(that hadn't seen him since 2005, when he was only a maybe 9 or 10?) didn't care enough to see him. His blood sister lived in the house and actually abused him herself? Sure she was scared of her Dad but under these circumstances I would have found a way to tell someone. The behavior of those that knew this horror was going on is morally repudnant, I pray this never happens again and in the future I hope we can take care of ALL of our KIDS even those that live in a trailer park in Gary Indiana. The only thing that gives me peace is that the main two monsters are locked up and will hopefully never see the light of day again. I hope also that the others that ignored Christian when he was alive will also step up to the plate and help the other kids of this world and never let them down, they already had a chance to save one little boy, hopefully Christian's comments of how he "wanted to die" will help them to NEVER let this happen again. God bless Christian a beautiful little boy that never had a snowballs chance in hell of surviving because NOBODY CARED!